Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Vol. 108, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 661 & 662, September/October 1996

Concrete Crosses by Angie Irvine

© 1996 by Angie Irvine

In her second piece for EQMM, and her second, published work of fiction, Carmel, California author Angie Irvine again makes use of subsidiary characters from the Traveler novels written by her husband Bob Irvine. Ms. Irvine is a computer engineer by day; she is currently at work on a high-tech thriller.

The summer of fifty-seven came early to Utah. The previous winter had been dry, and for the first time in living memory the glacier on Mount Timpanogos retreated, leaving a naked scar on the side of the mountain. The Wasatch Mountains were brown by June, and Salt Lake City baked. When the fires came, in August, the smoke boiled down the mountain’s flanks and settled in the basin, choking the city. The sidewalks were slick with soot and gray ash swirled in the air like some perverted imitation of a winter snow storm. The more nervous in the town cried Armageddon and took to the Temple in droves.

I found that whiskey was a powerful remedy for cleansing the throat, but I guess I wasn’t the only one. All my usual sources in this state were overwhelmed with demand. I had to make a run north to Idaho to stock up.

When the smokejumpers were killed, the headlines were big even up north. One of the boys was a local kid who lived on a ranch just outside of Samaria where I went to replace my stock. Driving up to the general store I noticed the door was draped in black bunting. The kid’s stepdad shopped there, the owner told me, and he wanted folks to remember that they had lost one of their own. I looked at the fly-specked display windows and the dust coating the cans and thought that in a small community each life helps shore up the barricade against the wilderness. Lose enough pieces and the barricade crumbles. I shivered and high-tailed it back to town.

And now, a year later, this grim-faced man sat in my office, another casualty of the big blowup at Hardscrabble Creek. His name was Harold Torvilson and he had an ugly gleam in his eye.

“Mr. Traveler, I want you to bring my son’s murderer to justice,” he said, sliding a newspaper clipping across the surface of my desk.

The clipping’s headline read, “Forest Ranger Saves Life by Setting Fire.” I looked up at Torvilson.

“Go ahead, read it,” he urged at my questioning glance.

The article was about the blowup at Hardscrabble and how this guy, James Ferguson, the crew boss, had set a fire right where he was standing and then lain down in the hot ashes. Evidently the fire he set burned off enough fuel that the big fire that was just behind it roared right past him. It was a hungry fire, consuming everything in its path, including Ferguson’s crew.

“They were just boys, you know. My Donny’d just turned eighteen.” For the first time I thought I caught just a trace of emotion in his voice, but there was some inner fire stoking him that had dried up all the tears.

“I don’t understand,” I said, handing him back the clipping. It was worn and crumpled like he’d squeezed it in his fist.

“I used to be a smokejumper, before I broke my leg. Broke it in so many pieces the quacks never could get it right. They wanted to give me a desk job, but I wouldn’t have it.” The limp had been noticeable when he’d come in. Evidently he was too proud to use a cane.

“I know fires,” he continued. “The fire Ferguson set, that’s the one that killed them. He saved his own hide and killed my boy. My Donny could run, he could run like the wind. If Ferguson hadn’t set that fire where he did, Donny would have made it to safety. They found his body the farthest out.” He said it with a kind of pride, as if “last one dead” was better than just plain dead.

I shifted some in my chair. It was hard to feel comfortable in the same room with this man. He had that ability to be perfectly still in a world full of winks and nods and other small motions that most of us indulge in when we’re carrying on a conversation. Among my acquaintances, only my Indian friends can be that still.

“The police don’t like outsiders messing in their affairs, Mr. Torvilson.” I didn’t try a smile; it would have been wasted.

“This isn’t a police matter,” he replied. The words came out, but we weren’t really having a conversation.

“Murder usually is,” I insisted.

“Not this one. They’re too stupid and pigheaded to see what’s as plain as the nose on their faces.” He hesitated a minute, but I could tell he was going to come out with it.

“Besides,” setting his teeth he spat out his words like they were giving him indigestion, “it happened on federal territory.”

Neither one of us said anything for a spell, and I looked out my office window at the Wasatch Mountains east of the city. They were federal territory.

“It’s still a police matter,” I finally answered. “We don’t call them Federal Police, but you should be talking to the FBI.”

“Nobody thinks a crime was committed. The Forest Service is investigating. The Forest Service, can you beat that? They’re scrambling to cover their hides. That’s what they’re doing.”

“And what is it they’re covering up?” I asked softly. For all his stillness I figured his pot was on the boil.

“How he was murdered. How they all were murdered,” he intoned. “In the fire. Last year.”

I didn’t like the way this conversation was going. “I’m not sure what you expect me to do. You say that the Forest Service is investigating. Surely they’ll be in a position to tell if this Ferguson did anything wrong.”

“They’ll try to cover it up, mark my words. But if they think there’s someone looking over their shoulder, there’s a better chance maybe...” His voice trailed off and his eyes got kind of blank. Whatever he was seeing, it sure wasn’t me. Then he roused himself, hunching up a little, and it seemed to me he sort of shrunk until he was just a tired old man grieving for his kid. “I’m just asking you to keep them honest, Mr. Traveler. That’s all.”

Well, I guess he got to me after all. I had a young boy and I’d nearly lost him once. “I don’t know if I can be of any real help, but I tell you what I’ll do. Give me three days. I’ll nose around a bit. If it looks like I can make any contribution to this mess, I’ll let you know. And if I can’t, I’ll let you know that too and we’ll call it quits. Deal?”

He nodded his assent and pulled out his checkbook, but I stopped him. “This is a handshake deal,” I said and held out my mitt.

“Handshake deal,” he replied and took my hand. He braced his shoulders and stoked up the fires some. I think I liked him better the other way.

I took some particulars and he gave me a couple of names. Then he walked out of the office ramrod straight. You could barely notice the limp.

I called Anson Horne, Salt Lake City’s chief of police. Not that Anson’s a good buddy of mine, but he’s honest as the day is long and we knew more things about one another than casual acquaintances had any right.

“We know about Torvilson,” Horne’s deep voice rolled out of the receiver end of the phone. If I’d held it out about two feet I would’ve been able to hear him just as good. Anson was in your force-of-nature category, nothing stopped him. “Lay off of this one, Martin. Your client is barking up the wrong tree.”

“Why, because my client is wrong or because you want me to?”

“Your client is a damn fool, and you’re an even bigger one,” he replied and hung up on me. Now I’ve never known Anson to swear, him being in the Church and all, so I must have upset him some. Or more likely, Torvilson had rubbed him raw. It was clear that Anson didn’t take the charges of murder seriously.

I took off for the county library and spent a dull afternoon reading. The phone was ringing as I got back. It was Anson.

“I got a couple of bottles of near beer that could be cooling in the creek,” he growled. This was as close to an apology as I was going to get.

“See you in ten,” I replied and hung up.

When I got there I was surprised to see that Horne wasn’t alone. The other man was short and stocky, but he filled out his police uniform a lot better than Anson did. His sandy complexion looked a lot healthier than Anson’s, too.

“This is Red Hadley,” Anson said.

Somehow I didn’t think that the sandy hair was red enough for the nickname, but it might have faded with age. Probably he had a quick temper, most carrot-tops do. I wondered what he was doing here.

We shook hands. “Glad to meet you. Thought I knew most of the boys in blue around here.”

“Red’s from up north,” Anson interjected. “He signed on with us right after Christmas.”

We stood around some, after that, both me and Red looking at Horne, waiting for him to get on with it. Anson plunged his hand into City Creek and dragged out a cooler. “Have one,” he commanded, thrusting a bottle of his favorite near beer in my direction.

“I don’t generally drink alone,” I replied. Red must’ve thought that was pretty funny, ’cause he guffawed and got his own bottle from the cooler. Anson just got red in the face.

“This guy Torvilson is a troublemaker,” Horne blurted out.

“Trouble for who?” I asked, taking a swig. The stuff was cold, that’s all I can say.

“Think I’d let a murder go by on my watch?”

“Isn’t your territory, way I hear it,” I answered.

Hadley chimed in, “Torvilson came in with some cock-’n’-bull story about those kids being murdered. If it was true, do you think we wouldn’t care?” His complexion was suffused with an ugly angry glow, no wonder people called him Red.

“Chief,” I turned to Horne, “what do you want from me? You know I got a living to make, just like you. But I haven’t got such a heavy load. I don’t want to add to yours, but I’ve got to make my way.”

Hadley grabbed my arm. “They were just kids and they all died. Nothing’s going to bring them back. Torvilson calls me every day.” Anson gently pulled him away.

“There’s nothing to this,” Horne continued, “but anything you find out, you tell me first. I don’t want this Torvilson doing anything stupid.”

“Like hiring me?”

“Like taking matters into his own hands.”

Anson and I, we looked at each other. Hadley wasn’t part of this; I don’t know why Horne brought him. It wasn’t necessary for me to speak, we knew each other that well. “Thanks for the beer.” I gave him a half salute. “It almost tasted like one.”

I spun on my heel and left them there, two rubes drinking near beer by City Creek.

Next morning I trekked up to the ranger station out at Henefe. I’d finally turned the old pre-war Chevy in for a later model. The Buick Super purred along the road and I was glad I’d let the top down. The air was still cool and fresh. It would stay that way for a while in the shadow of the Wasatch.

The ranger station didn’t turn out to be much to look at and neither did Edgar Benson. He was kind of a short ugly guy who reminded me of a toad, fat and all puffed up with his own importance. He didn’t like giving out information. Probably he didn’t have any and didn’t want to admit it.

“The inquiry is ongoing,” he repeated for what must have been the tenth or eleventh time.

“Look, I just want to help put this thing to rest,” I replied. “Got any kids?” I asked, trying to find some common ground with this guy.

“My personal life is no business of yours,” he retorted stiffly and I knew I wasn’t going to get anywhere.

“Thanks for nothing,” I said and withdrew as best I could. I got back in the car and drove on north. Thought I’d go take a look at the site. Sure wasn’t going to ask permission from the sourpuss I’d just been bantering with.

Hardscrabble was about an hour’s drive from Henefe and when I got there I realized I couldn’t take the car all the way in. I was wearing city shoes, but the going didn’t look all that bad. There was a path leading through a small stand of pine trees that had surprisingly survived the firestorm. I thought I’d walk a ways in.

As soon as I got round a bend in the path the ground opened up to a little valley. There’s where they got caught, I thought. They were walking out of the Wasatch after successfully fighting a fire up at Mahogany Ridge. They were tired and hungry and all they wanted to do was reach the road. It was their bad luck that a lightning strike had started a blaze in front of them.

“It started just about where you’re standing.” A voice behind me spoke aloud the thought that was running in my head. I just about jumped out of my skin.

“You shouldn’t sneak up on a body so,” I said. “Might like to get you killed someday.”

Red Hadley gave me a deadpan look and shrugged his shoulders. “I wasn’t particularly trying to be quiet,” he replied. “You seemed pretty wrapped up in your own thoughts.”

“Can’t say I particularly expected to see anyone around here. ’Specially you. I thought you were solidly of the act-of-God school of thought.”

“Got curious, that’s all. Thought I’d see how you were doing.”

“You mean Anson Horne wanted to see what I was up to, don’t you.”

He shrugged and looked past me to the other end of the valley. “Yep,” he said, “I guess it started just about here. Nothing but burned-out stumps this side of the creek bed. Those boys weren’t expecting to meet fire between them and the road. They had a radio, but nobody’d reported it.

“Funny thing about fire,” he continued. “I like near froze to death once. Never was so glad to see a fire in all my life. It felt like I could just plunge my feet into it up to my knees and it wouldn’t hurt me none. Didn’t do it,” he added, “got more sense.”

The floor of the valley sloped upwards from where we were standing. I took a deep breath and started the climb. The stillness of the air had a weight to it, making it hard to pull it into my lungs. It seemed to want to wrap me up the way a spider does before it sucks you dry.

The dry grass crackled under my feet and broke the spell. The going wasn’t bad but the soil was loose. I was taking my time, but a flat-out run would sure be hell. And that’s what they were doing, those six boys, a flat-out run, with the fire roaring and howling at their heels.

Hadley stuck to me like glue. We walked for a while without talking before we came to a marker of sorts, a concrete cross about four feet high. It looked out of place in this wild setting.

“There’s a cross for every spot where they found a body. Here’s where Morris bought it,” Hadley commented. “He was only sixteen.”

Baumgartner, Dorn, Green, Morris, Torvilson, and Taglia. I knew from my research that Morris had been the first boy to die.

“How d’you know so much?” I inquired.

“Torvilson spent nearly every day for close on to six months at the station. Kept ragging on us to do something. There isn’t any little detail I don’t know from that man. Morris lied about his age,” he continued as if impelled to tell me everything he knew. “This was his first jump.”

I looked up the valley and could see four more crosses strung out ahead. Morris had finished last in the race that nobody won. We kept on walking. We were going at a slow pace, but by the time we got to the second cross I was exhausted. The incline that had seemed deceptively gentle at the mouth of the valley was tying the muscles of my legs into knots. At the base of this cross someone had laid flowers. Even in the heat, they still retained their shape.

I thought that Hadley would start a lecture about whichever poor kid this cross represented, but he was silent. I guess he was as breathless as I was.

“Someone’s been here,” I finally managed to get out, “and not too long ago by the looks of things.”

“Torvilson,” Hadley muttered. “It’s Torvilson’s cross,” he said in a louder voice. “It doesn’t do to dwell so much on the past.” He turned on his heel and started back down the valley.

I looked up to the head of the valley, then back at Hadley’s retreating form. The shadows had shifted some, and then I saw it. High on the rim of the valley, alone from the rest of the crowd, the sixth cross stood outside the edge of safety. I guess when you’re running from red death a miss is as good as a mile.

The folly of man hit me like a blow. The bodies had been taken elsewhere. The entire valley was an empty graveyard of hope. The crosses were cruel reminders that young men don’t always get to be old ones. My only comfort was that the crosses that disfigured the fire-scarred valley would eventually crumble away. Hadley was right. Sometimes it’s best to leave the past alone. “Rest in peace,” I whispered and followed the policeman down.

Hadley was out of view when I spotted Ranger Benson lumbering round the bend as I came to the little stand of pines. “Well, isn’t this a regular convention here,” I called out. Old pasty-face didn’t improve on coming close.

“We’re conducting a federal investigation here,” he snapped at me without preamble. “What are you doing here?”

“This here is a national park, or it was last time I noticed, and I’m a private citizen just enjoying the view.”

“I can run you out for disturbing the peace. It would be your word against mine.”

“No, it wouldn’t,” Hadley said. He must’ve circled back through the pines because he’d come up behind Benson real quiet-like.

“You’ve got no jurisdiction here,” Benson snorted.

“Maybe this says I have,” Hadley replied, slapping his holster.

Benson huffed and puffed, but he couldn’t seem to get any words out. I stepped between them and said, “Maybe you could give us some general information, you being a forest ranger and we being interested tourists, so to speak.”

“Like what?” He eyed me suspiciously.

“Like what’s a blowout?”

His chest seemed to swell, and the little toad even took on a superior grin. “A blowout’s a firestorm, I thought everybody knew that. The air gets so hot everything bursts into flame. Then the winds whip up because there’s a temperature gradient...”

“Speak English,” Hadley interrupted. Benson looked offended and I thought he was going to clam up.

“We haven’t had your schooling,” I interjected.

Darned if the little toad didn’t puff up some more.

“If there’s cooler air coming in from somewhere, then there’s a temperature gradient, a difference between the cool air and the superheated air. The difference causes the hot air to rise, sucking in the cooler air. There’s literally a tornado of fire. It’s called a firestorm.” He grinned. He thought he was lecturing idiots.

“You must know a lot about fires,” I prompted.

“I’ve fought a few. Took care of one all by myself, right here, the day before.”

I was confused. “You mean yesterday?” There didn’t seem that much left to burn.

The self-satisfaction seemed to drain from Benson’s face. “You ask too many questions,” he replied and stumped back off down the trail.

When I got back to my office a woman was waiting for me outside the door. She was wearing a worn, faded dress that looked like it had been washed too many times and she clutched a cheap leatherette handbag with hands that would be a poor ad for Palmolive. They were red and callused, one finger adorned with a wedding ring. She was somebody’s hard-working wife.

“Mr. Traveler?” she asked in an anxious kind of voice. I wondered how long she’d been standing there.

“Yes ma’am, were you waiting for me?”

She nodded mutely and I ushered her in. She didn’t sit down when I pulled out the client’s chair and that left the two of us standing sort of stupid-like in the middle of the room.

“I shouldn’t have come,” she said and turned as if to go.

That’s women for you, never wanting what they have, only what they can’t get. “Well, you’re here now, ma’am,” I said in my softest voice. “It would be a shame to waste all that time you spent waiting for me, wouldn’t it?” I could tell she was the kind of woman who hoarded up the minutes and was careless of the years.

After I settled her down, I asked, “Now, ma’am, what can I do for you?”

She dithered some, but finally came out with it. “It’s Harold Torvilson, he’s going to kill my husband, I know he is.” She turned on the waterworks and for a minute I thought I was going to have to give her my only clean handkerchief, but she fumbled in her battered purse and came up with one of her own.

I let her get hold of herself before I continued. “Mrs. Ferguson — it is Mrs. Ferguson?” I asked. Who else was everybody saying Torvilson was getting set to kill, I thought. “What makes you think that Mr. Torvilson is going to kill your husband?”

“He hired you, didn’t he?”

That took me back some. “I can assure you, ma’am,” I said in my best country-lawyer imitation, “except for the war, I’ve never killed a man in my life.”

“Edgar Benson called. As soon as I picked up the receiver I knew it was trouble. Ed and my Jim haven’t spoken for years. I gave the phone to Jim and went over to my neighbor’s place as quick as I could. We’re on the party line, you know. She let me listen, no questions asked. She’s been a good friend to me through all our troubles.”

I let her take her time thinking about her good friend, maybe her only friend about now. In times of trouble women will stick together like glue. Pretty soon she started up again. “Edgar said that Mr. Torvilson had gotten himself a hired gun and that he... uh, you were coming after my Jim.”

The puffed-up toad, why was he stirring things up? I wondered.

“Mr. Traveler, I don’t have any money, but please take this.” She twisted the gold band from her finger, struggling to get it past her work-swollen knuckle. “It’s got to be worth something?”

I put my hand over hers. “Now don’t you fuss, ma’am. That ring is worth a whole lot more to you than it is to me. Your man’s in no danger, leastways not from me.

“Mr. Torvilson, he’s cut up real bad,” I continued, “but I don’t see him taking the law into his own hands.” I hoped I was right. “He asked me to hold a watching brief, make sure things were done right. I’m sure your husband would want the same.”

“I can tell you this, he wasn’t expecting no fire at Hardscrabble Creek. He had a radio with him and nobody’d reported it.”

“Ma’am, I’m sure your man must be waiting supper about now. He’s probably worried about where you’re at.”

“He has bad dreams,” she continued. “He calls out in the middle of the night, ‘This way, over here.’ He told me he can see them, in the dream, the same as real life. They don’t listen to him. Every last one of them boys. They go on by. And every last one of them boys got themselves killed and now the blame’s on him. Oh, it just isn’t fair.”

She continued to fuss some, but I assured her that I would come over next day and have a little chat with her husband. I’d been planning to see him anyway.

I closed up the office and shepherded her out. Barney Chester was just putting up the Evening Telegraph on the racks of his newsstand as we entered the lobby. I heard a small mewl like a kitten might make and I turned to look at my companion. She was white as a sheet and starting to wobble. Barney rushed over to my side, spilling the remainder of the papers, whose headlines screamed, “Forest Ranger Murdered,” as Mrs. Ferguson slid to the floor.

“So I didn’t catch her — she’s all right, isn’t she?” I protested, the following day, to Anson Horne. We were having a cup of java at the Snappy Service lunch stand just up from the police station. Horne preferred talking to me on neutral territory.

Horne laughed. “You don’t have much luck with women, do you, Martin?”

“She had no cause to faint, wasn’t even her husband involved.”

“Don’t blame her much. Who would have thought that Torvilson would get the wrong man? You can’t say I didn’t try to head you off. You could see that canker working on him. Hiring you must have shoved him over the edge.”

“Funny, I don’t see it that way. Anson, you’re a student of human nature and so am I, and after five years of butting heads with you I think I’ve got to know you pretty good.”

“So?”

“I know you’re fiercely loyal to your men. I know you don’t like guys like Torvilson yammering that you’re not doing your job. So I know that sometimes you put two and two together a little faster than you ought.”

Horne took a deep breath and then another one. Since his last heart attack he’s been practicing controlled breathing. I probably should have put it to him more roundabout, but Anson’s like a mule. You’ve got to hit him with a two-by-four to get his attention.

“All right,” he growled. “Have your say. I know I couldn’t stop you anyhow.”

“You’re right about one thing, Torvilson is the murderer, but not the way you think. He didn’t pull the trigger. How about you and Hadley taking Torvilson out for a little ride. Meet me at Hardscrabble about four this afternoon.”

He didn’t say he would, but he didn’t say he wouldn’t. And sure enough, when four o’clock rolled around, the three of them were there at the head of the trail.

The heat of the day was still clinging to the stones, and the scent of pine sap from the few remaining trees perfumed the air. It wasn’t till we reached the head of the valley that you could smell the lingering acrid scent of ash. Horne had been pretty patient with me up until now, but I could tell he was getting set to dig in his heels.

I stopped and said, “Okay, gentlemen, what do you see?” The shadows were lengthening and the crosses caught the sun in golden relief.

Red was quiet and Horne looked at me like I was mad, but Torvilson took a deep breath and said, “My son’s cross is high up the rim of the valley,” just like nobody else had died there.

“Six crosses,” I answered, “and your son’s the farthest one out. Right?”

“He was a fast runner. He was the star of his high-school track team.”

“And how about your boy, Red?” I asked softly.

“Don’t have a boy, never did,” he answered.

“But your wife did. And you raised him as your own, up in Idaho, didn’t you.”

Red lit out, not back toward the road, but up the valley, mimicking the six who had died there. I knew his heart was pounding and his muscles were straining, but there was no fire behind him, only Anson Horne.

The Chief of Police did nothing.

“Aren’t you going to shoot him?” Torvilson demanded.

“You’re a bloodthirsty son of a gun, aren’t you?” Anson retorted. I noticed he was taking deep breaths. “You kept pouring acid on him every day.” He turned to me. “How’d you find out?”

“I met Hadley here yesterday. I thought he was following me on your orders. In fact, he’d been laying flowers at his boy’s cross. He made a bad mistake telling me that cross marked where Torvilson’s boy had gone down. Still, it’s no crime not wanting someone else knowing your business. It was when Benson got killed instead of Ferguson that I knew he had to be guilty.”

“Look here,” Anson interjected. “I knew about the kid when Red brought his family down from Idaho. He didn’t like to talk about it, just wanted to make a fresh start. Get the past behind him. He was doing just fine until you started coming around.” He poked Torvilson in the chest.

“All I wanted was justice,” Torvilson retorted.

“And you got it, kind of. Benson let slip that he’d put a fire out the day before the big blowup. He’d never reported it. It must have started to dawn on him that we’d noticed the slip. He tried to muddy the waters, but it was already too late. Hadley was faster than me in figuring out that Benson had committed two sins. He hadn’t reported the fire, and he’d done a sloppy job of putting it out. It must have smoldered all night. By morning it had flared up again and closed off the road.”

Torvilson interrupted, “He’s getting away.”

Anson looked at him with cold blue eyes. “We’re on federal territory. I have no jurisdiction here.”

We looked up the valley at Hadley struggling up the rim of the valley. He’d reached the cross that marked the spot where the fastest kid had lost the race. He struggled on by without stopping, but I knew that safety was beyond his reach.